


Sticks and Stones

by fishdad (Svynakee)



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Gen, inaho's childhood was a doozy (although not as bad as slaine's), inaweek, inaweek_orphan, pre-canon?, some descriptions of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 05:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9642608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Svynakee/pseuds/fishdad
Summary: Cold. Hard. Cruel. The place they called ‘The Home’ was anything but.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A fic for the fourth theme of Inaweek, The Orphan. This is obviously based on the short novel detailing Inaho's life from before the series; they kind of just glide right over his time in the orphanage, which is really unacceptable, since it has the potential to be quite horrible.
> 
> (in which an author grossly over-analyses every little detail of inaho's character)

There are one hundred and fifty-three orphans in The Home, which is only one of many such ‘homes’ in the country. In Inaho’s own ‘Home’ there are only twenty staff members. Less than one adult for every eight children.

 

In the wake of the war and Heavens Fall disaster, many places are understaffed. So this is only logical, and Inaho does not get upset over it.

 

But it makes things inconvenient.

 

‘The Home’, and the adults in charge of it, have rules. Inaho and his sister, along with every other child, had had these rules explained to them when they first arrived. He’d been too young to understand them back then, but Yuki had done her utmost to relay them to him when he’d grown. Inaho had learned them all – it wasn’t difficult. Most of them were borne out of necessity. Ways to minimise harm, prevent conflict, conserve resources and the like. Yuki had laughed and praised him for being smart, ruffling his hair while she enveloped him in a warm hug.

But the reality is that these official rules are only the rules of the adults. Older children like his sister have to follow them as they go to school and help with the chores. For children his own age… the children have their own set of rules.

 

Whereas the rules of the adults are like high stone walls – sectioning off the forbidden from the permitted, unmoveable and solid – the rules of the children’s world are like the smoke Inaho remembers seeing when he was younger, erupting in the distance to mar the sky with black. They change suddenly, emerge without warning, disappear just as quickly. The patterns are all but indiscernible. The boundary between right and wrong blur and shift.

 

For some reason, Inaho is always caught on the wrong side.

* * *

It’s a stormy winter evening, where the sky is pitch black save for flashes of white lightning and the wind howls against the windows. The adults had turned off the lights, as if they thought that the children who were not helping with chores would sleep. It’s obviously impossible.

 

The thunder scares the children. For the smaller ones, it’s usually because of the sudden, loud cracks that sounds like the roof splitting open or the roars that come from nowhere to rumble through the entire building. For the older inhabitants of ‘The Home’, it’s because of the memories.

 

Inaho does not fear the thunder. The shockwaves caused by the expansion of air up in the atmosphere has no effect on him, so he ignores it.

 

But he cannot ignore the cold.

 

There’s not much for him to do in ‘The Home’ when the younger children don’t have lessons or chores. The former are often cancelled when the staff have other things to attend to, and Inaho is rarely asked to help with the latter. He does all the tasks given to him in ways that he finds efficient and he’s certain that the result is satisfactory. But the people don’t like the way he stares, his quietness, how he will sometimes suggest better alternatives to the methods they use.

 

_ ‘That’s so creepy.’ _

 

_ ‘Haha, you sure know… a lot more than a kid your age should.’ _

 

_ ‘Don’t do that! Fuck, you’re like some kind of ghost.’ _

 

Weird.

 

Scary.

 

Freak.

 

The children seem to sense it too – his wrongness. They shy away when he approaches, if not openly rejecting him with jeers and the occasional thrown toy. So he spends his free time alone, if Yuki is busy. And Yuki is often busy.

 

Thunder roars again, rolling through the long, low hall. Shrieks rise from the smaller children. Metal creaks as they spring onto – and sometimes under – their beds. There are some derisive hoots and jeers from the older children, some laughs. Then the noise dies down until only a few sobs and the occasional gentle shushing breaks the silence.

Inaho shivers.

 

If he uncurls from his current position – tucked into himself, knees drawn up as far as they can go up to his chin with his arms around his shoulders, his bedsheet stripped from the thin mattress so that he could wrap it around his body – he would be able to see many empty beds as the children huddle in twos and threes. Cots had been pushed together, gathered thickest near the heaters where the older, the strong children had claimed the most desirable space. 

 

They ring the sources of warmth like moths and their occupants laugh and shout and play. A bit further come the little islands built from those who shared friendships or blood ties, sharing blankets and body heat as they whisper and giggle. Their conversations are littered with in-jokes and references to past events, a code borne of a past spent together, turning it into a language of alien codes to an outsider. Then there are the smaller children, the newer children. Some had formed alliances and now lay quietly on a single bed, still too wary of the adult’s rules to risk moving their beds so that they are cramped into one. Not familiar enough to talk but still recognising the advantages of not being alone, or perhaps simply still unused to the loneliness that has become the norm in the aftermath of Heavens Fall, they lay in stony silence until they drift off to sleep. Inaho can sometimes catch their eyes twinkling in the distance. If he stares for too long, the twinkle is abruptly cut off.

 

Inaho is next to the window.

 

It is the coldest here. The thunder is the loudest, rattling the panes. The lightning flashes brightest through the thin curtains. The wind wails like an evacuation siren and the rain drums a ceaseless tattoo right next to his ear.

 

He has no bed. No blanket. Those things had gone to one of the groups near the heater; the one with the largest boy in the room. He’s strong and surrounded by… not friends. Yuki has explained friendship to him as she tried to encourage him to foster it with children his own age, and this is not it. Those that always accompany him do so because he is like the heater. Near the heater, there is laughter and noise and distraction.

 

It chases away the cold and the dark. It distances oneself from the weak.

 

Inaho shifts without meaning to and the sole of one bare foot comes into contact with the stone wall beneath the window. It’s ice cold. He withdraws it quickly. Wraps the bedsheet around himself tighter and breathes – but the material is too thin to sufficiently trap the warmth of his breaths and he’s left cold, cold, cold.

 

Inaho shivers, and learns to hate the cold.

* * *

 

Inaho loses his grip on his plate of salmon as soon as it’s yanked out of his hand. Miso soup splashes over his other hand and his clothes as he loses his balance, landing hard on the floor; luckily, he’s always among the last in line for food so the soup is only lukewarm.

 

A shadow looms over him. Inaho can recognise the boy even though he cannot name him – all the younger children can. The tall one. The strong one. The one that laughs, and pushes, and takes. He smiles as he inspects his second helping of rice and fish. His friends surround him with their jackal grins, congratulating him for his victory. Inaho frowns. He had been ambushed by a larger opponent while alone; the odds had been against him. The boy takes a bite of the salmon and wrinkles his nose, complaining about how cold the meat is. Perhaps he doesn’t want it after all.

 

“Give that back. It’s mine,” Inaho says.

 

“Why should I?” the boy asks. He holds the plate in front of Inaho’s face, knowing full well that he could easily yank it out of reach before Inaho managed to get off the floor. Having calculated the distance, Inaho doesn’t bother to try.

 

“Because I need to eat,” Inaho answers.

 

It’s the wrong response. He’s shoved roughly from the side by one of the hooting friends who declares, “As if you need to eat that much! You’re tiny!”

 

Inaho massages his side. The bowl of miso soup is now unsalvageable. All that’s left is his plate of fried egg, which had been cooked in such a quantity of grease that the fat had congealed as it cooled, allowing it to stick to the plate as it skid across the floor after being knocked from his grip. Moving towards it, however, seemed unwise. Instead, Inaho tries to explain, “I’m small because I’m still growing. I need to eat properly. Lack of nutrition can lead to stunted growth, so it’s actually very important for me to-”

 

He's not fast enough to dodge as the plate of salmon is slammed into his face. The boy was right – it  _ is _ cold. The pain and shock stun Inaho for a second too long and he’s unable to catch the plate before his breakfast slides to the floor.

 

All he’s left with is his greasy fried egg and the sound of laughter as the troupe of bullies walk away.

 

Inaho uses his shirt to wipe his face. Picks up his egg.

 

He has to take a deep breath before he eats it and even then it almost sticks in his throat, a flavourless, slimy thing that’s picked up all the accumulated burnt bits from the bottom of the pan. Despite that, his body instantly demands more food; food that won’t come until dinnertime.

Inaho goes to find a change of clothes.

 

That night, he asks Yuki if there are other ways to eat eggs and she tells him about them all – scrambled and rolled omelettes and chawanmushi, seasoned with all sorts of ingredients that Inaho has never even seen.

 

“I don’t like fried eggs, Yuki-nee,” he says.

 

Yuki hugs him tighter. “Me neither.”

* * *

 

The child screams as he runs from the bathroom.

 

Inaho looks up from a red-stained sink but he’s gone, so Inaho returns to trying to stem the flow of blood from the cut above his eye. The metallic tang in his mouth is becoming familiar, although it’s usually from biting his tongue or a broken lip. Cold water can help lessen bruising but Inaho doubts he can hide a cut from his sister, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to convince her that his injuries come from clumsiness. He suspects that she’s already tried to tell the adults.

 

Even if she had, they wouldn’t have done anything. And bad things happen to ‘tattletales’. Inaho doesn’t want Yuki to become involved; he doesn’t want Yuki to be the one sporting these wounds, the mark of someone who didn’t fit in.

 

But even if he managed to hide the true origins of his injuries, his sister is still being troubled. Inaho estimates that it’s been around half a minute since the child ran from the bathroom. By now, he would have probably alerted a member of the staff, grossly over exaggerating the severity of Inaho’s injuries due to the sight of blood. Soon, a male staff member would be fetching Inaho while someone – probably the screaming child – was sent to alert Yuki. And then she would have to take care of Inaho and fuss over him on top of doing whatever chores she had for today.

 

Yuki always seemed so tired, lately. She was sleeping less. And her degenerating sleep patterns coincided with the frequency of Inaho getting hurt.

 

Inaho removes the wad of tissues he’d been using on his wound. The white paper has been dyed red.

 

Inaho discards the dirty tissue and takes some fresh ones to clean up the mud-covered, bloody mess that his knees have become. He’s not even sure of the extent of the damage; the pain screams that the he’s been skinned to the bone, it burns like fire, it’s agony and he’s never going to walk again – but that’s impossible, he tells himself, and wills his heart to stop its panicked tattoo against his ribs. The important thing is to clean the wound. Then the sink. Then make certain that he removes all traces of blood from the bathroom.

 

Before Yuki arrives.

 

Inaho doubts that he’ll be able to make her believe that this was a mere accident, or that he’ll even manage to finish cleaning up.

 

But Yuki should rest more.

 

Inaho grits his teeth as he begins to clean his knees; his legs flare up in agony with the slightest touch as Inaho tries to remove the grime caked over them. He pushes on through the waves of pain, keeping his hand steady and his mind focused.

 

Yuki needs to rest. Yuki shouldn’t worry about him. He shouldn’t make Yuki worry.

 

A shout from the doorway as it slams open dashes his hopes. In a second his sister has her arms around him, gently taking the tissues from his hands as she strokes his hair and says that she’s sorry, again and again and again even as he tries to explain that it isn’t her fault.

 

The pain that he feels as her tears soak into his shirt is somehow more potent than that of his wounds.

 

Slowly, he puts a hand in her soft hair and tries to mimic her comforting petting motion. She pulls back from him and gives him a smile. Calls him brave. Says that she’s sorry, again.

 

It’s clear that Yuki will not be getting a good night’s rest tonight.

 

Inaho decides that things need to change.

* * *

 

How does one defeat an enemy superior to them in every way?

 

Inaho heaves himself up onto the dumpster, then jumps so that he can grab the top of the low wall around the back of the orphanage.

 

If one dismisses the chance of victory as impossible, then it will become the reality.

 

Carefully, with his arms spread out for balance, Inaho walks along the top of the wall until he’s level with the roof of a shed. There’s a pipe he can climb to reach the roof.

 

The key is to stop thinking of the target as some undefeatable whole. To break down exactly what gives your opponent their advantages.

 

Inaho’s palms are sweaty and he’s still breathing hard from running to the narrow path between the shed and another unused building; one that’s fallen into disrepair, with two crumbling walls and bricks slowly being overtaken by plant life.

 

If the advantage was in numbers, find a way to separate them. A bottleneck.

 

The top of the shed is uncomfortably warm from the morning sun, but it hasn’t yet reached the burning temperatures that Inaho knows it can from experience. There are still some hours until noon. He has plenty of time. Inaho walks to the edge of the roof.

 

If the advantage is in size, then use the terrain to your advantage.

 

From this vantage point, Inaho can see all the way from the main building of the orphanage to the rarely-used, badly maintained ‘backyard’ where he stands. He can see the path he had chosen to lead his quarry through; a twisting, winding thing through thickly clustered bushes and over open drains and around piles of long-forgotten rubbish that had been allowed to accumulate. The route that he’d memorised so that he knew each leap and turn by heart while those chasing him had fumbled and cursed at each new obstacle.

 

Inaho waits for his breathing to slow before he moves onto the next part of his plan, sitting down on the roof and watching the clouds drift across the sunny sky. Fair weather and good visibility is important for this step. Below him, the boys trapped in the pit he’d dug shout and cry for help. Nobody will hear them. The only person who knows their location is the one who lead them here.

 

If the advantage is in physical strength, the attack from a distance.

 

Inaho considers the rocks and broken bricks that he’s stockpiled neatly in one corner of the roof. The rope he used to haul them up still lies coiled beside the stacks. Carefully, Inaho selects one and hefts it in his hand. It will do.

 

Out of sight of the adults, the children of ‘the Home’ make their own rules.

 

Out of sight of anyone else, in a place that he has chosen and tailored to his needs, it is logical to assume that the only rules that matter are the ones that Inaho himself enforces.

 

He looks down. A boy has made it to the edge of the pit. He’s jumping, trying to get out. He manages to find purchase by digging his hands into the rough dirt walls of the hole. In a few minutes – perhaps less, if his fellows aid him – he will be free.

 

Inaho raises his rock. Carefully takes aim.

 

And throws.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sticks and stones can break leg bones so Inaho doesn't bother with words... 
> 
> Much liberty was taken with basically everything; how I curse the short novel for being written from Yuki's perspective! At the same time I really like Yuki and the way she cares for Inaho so my complaints aren't that serious.
> 
> A huge thank you to icinks for betaing.


End file.
